Wide-eyed and anxious in the museum of sleep

October 29 2002

Lenny Ann Low explains why there's no nodding off at the Melbourne Festival.

Slowly and quietly, like a far-off drone of murmuring bees, the cries, coughs and mutterings of humans begin. The just-seated festival audience talks on, seemingly unaware of the rising hubbub emanating from the speaker system. As Genesi, From the Museum of Sleep, by Italy's Societas Raffaello Sanzio, begins, the State Theatre seems under siege.

Director Romeo Castellucci's vision of the beginning of the world, the inhumanities of Auschwitz and the essence of life and death, starts from a tiny roar and builds to a splintering disturbance. Through almost three hours of theatre, Castellucci's metaphorical interpretation of the first book of the Bible is apocalyptic, mostly wordless and unlike almost all forms of contemporary theatre. It rejects obvious narrative or plot and transforms the stage into a series of vivid installations of fiction and reality.

The performance is divided into three acts. The first begins in the laboratory of Madame Curie as Lucifer, a very tall, gaunt man in a top hat, wrings his hands and speaks at length in Hebrew above glowing, flickering rods of radium. After a gathering of well-dressed figures withdraws he moves through the dimness, discards his clothing and squeezes between two tall poles, the gates of heaven. Adam, a tall muscular black man wearing a white sock pats himself with white powder, a moth flutters above in a clear case and a scientist in a white coat spins on a platform.

A little later a middle-aged Eve with a mastectomy staggers from her caged chamber, her hair falls out and a massive loom-like machine begins to shake and revolve in the background.

For the second act, titled Auschwitz, children in white aprons and caps walk through a milky-white set of curtains, feather piles and tea-party furniture. Two are in rabbit suits with tall pointing ears and another arrives on a white toy train. All seems soft and innocent and, like a lullaby, muffled old-time music serenades the scene. The realities and horror of Auschwitz are occasionally realistically referenced - the children stand under a shower, the head of another is hooded and his neck slashed - but all seems surreal and other-worldly, like potent imagery from Alice In Wonderland.");document.write("

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The third act features the world's first murder. The actor playing Abel strangles Cain with his withered arm and is plunged into remorse.

Altogether this is an apocalyptic nightmare, a cataclysmic dream. Yet, despite its size in set, sound and length, Genesi is eerily intimate. The potent symbols, painterly composition and extraordinary soundscape lures us into private journeys. Watching from the plush theatre seats it is as if we have stumbled upon a ghastly secret, a vision of history's horrors both beautiful and hideous.

Although vastly different in theatrical style, Back To Back Theatre's sold-out show, Soft, also explores notions of beauty and horror. Set inside an enormous purpose-built, inflatable white room, the Geelong-based group delivers an astoundingly profound meditation on science and society's exploration of genetic perfection. Stem-cell research, prenatal screening and cloning are issues which seemingly seek to eradicate humanity's imperfections. Alternately inspiring, affecting and hilarious the production includes a couple's decision to abort their Down syndrome child, a futuristic inquisition into the identity of a man with an unknown genetic structure and monologues about personal history and placement in a world racing to embrace scientific breakthroughs. As the cast includes actors with Down syndrome, and other performers with "genetic diversity" - as director Bruce Gladwin terms it - each scenario and interaction feels doubly significant.

Multimedia imagery is projected across the space with exquisite footage of larger than life cells marauding over the walls. The actors are miked-up and, combined with a soundscape of skewed electronic and orchestral sounds, the audience listens to the show through headphones. The production is an extraordinary view of the values we place on humanity's make-up..

On the other side of the cavernous venue incorporating Soft, kids in caps and cool tracksuits have been punching the air from their seats in excited anticipation. A section of the crowd waiting for Play Dirty has arrived to view a show hyped to include a mountainous motocross bike spectacular, an ear-splitting explosion of music and a feverish war between man, identity and machine.

The audience watches from behind a mesh fence which emphasises the caged-animal quality of these charged-up motocross fanatics. The main character, Troy Hill, full of Aussie bravado, big dreams and self-questioning doubt, stands transfixed by the sight of the motocross auditorium. He and his small band of friends enter the motocross arena with various hopes and goals. They find a massive dirt hill, a huge concrete tunnel and two large screens showing state-of-the-art flickering graphics, skewed film montages and live hand-held footage. They also meet Troy's comically interfering mother and Mad Pete, a motocross racer with a bad temper and a feisty leather-clad girlfriend.

This is ultimately a fun show incorporating serious issues. There are spunks for each gender, pounding music and one young man's inner struggle about identity. Motocross bikes fly over the dirt mound or shoot through the tunnel, screeching chainsaw-like motors drowning everything else out. And, essentially, that is the nature of this production. Although musicians in silver pants thrash live guitars while cast members sing hard, pumping ballads and fall in love, the two freestyle motocross riders spurting out from behind the dirt mountain are stars of the show.